HOLE IN THE SKY

We coast over the bridge of A1A, across the intercostal,
clouds hung against the sky like boats, light as sugar,
sunlight fanned on the windshield in rainbows, sailboats
beached upon the shore, their wooden masts leaning
towards one another, like heads bowed in secrecy.
In Delray, I see my son everywhere, the metal frame
of the beachside playground, children stamping holes
in the sky with their sandals, their fathers pushing them
on the swings, and I look for my son’s golden hair
falling behind him, like a handful of coins in the sun.
The avenue pulses with families, striped T shirts that flash
and disappear, children in jelly sandals, and on days like today,
I think of what I sacrificed to leave my son’s father,
the way I search for him in crowds every Sunday,
how I feel him in the backseat even now, the light kick
of his sneaker against my elbow. I imagine him
as we park parallel to the shoreline, his knuckles
turning white as he fusses with his seatbelt, his parted lips
to the ocean, as it arches its back toward the powder blue sky.
I imagine all that I want to show him, the shore that sinks
beneath his step like quicksand, the white foam,
clouds buoyed upon the horizon. Wherever he is,
I hope that he’s paused with wonder, seashells tiny
as baby teeth, slipping between his fingers,
as he stoops near the edge of the Earth, while it turns towards him
and under him, the sand slipping from beneath his toes,
sunlight breaking through the crown of his hair.

FLORIDA FIREFLIES

On our way to Kissimmee, the prairies stretch
longer and farther, like expanses of ocean, palm trees erected
like anorexic men, plumb against the horizon, and I tell you
of my grandfather who died of alcoholism, the grey matter
of his brain shrunken like cauliflower, shying away
from the perimeter of his skull, his memories folding
like an origami fortune teller, regressing to his days in Cuba.
As I watch the black cows, their tails that swing
like curtain ropes, I think of how I may not remember you
one day, how I may forget our days in Nola, or Philadelphia,
or even here, on the prairie, where the sunset smears
across the sky, rouge over the cheekbones of a lover
gradually shutting her eyes, sprays of palmettos
shattering the clouds. We walk to the bathrooms
along the unlit trail, after sunset, and we find it
among the gravel, like a piece of shrapnel -
twinkling in the myakka, its body like a grain of rice,
a skirt of bioluminescence illuminating its legs
like electrical filaments. If we ever forget,
the stars fell to the knee high grass tonight,
the galvanic silver impulses escalating in the shrubbery
among the Florida lightning bugs, as we stood
with beer cans in our hands, learning how to communicate
without sound, our bodies swaying closer in the headlights
exploding on the Military Trailhead, fireflies
sparking like shells in the darkness.

Amanda Leal is a 28-year-old poet from Lake Worth, FL. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in magazines such as White Wall Review, Sky Island Journal, Levee Magazine, West Trade Review, and others.